Susannah Fox

I help people navigate health and technology.

Susannah Fox

Three Simple Rules–Susannah Fox

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When in 2002 we came out with our bold new concept of “information therapy” I was sure that Tom would love the idea of doctors or health plans prescribing information to consumers. He didn’t. He was concerned that the prescribed information from clinicians would undermine the patient’s right or ability to search for information from other self-helpers…

…I think I am there—but then Tom might still not agree—for I still think that the self-help world will work better when the patient is also being prescribed information as a part of the process of care.

Wikipedia as an e-patient source–Susannah Fox

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Read this quote and think about which industry is being admonished: “We cannot, however, continue to reject Wikipedia because we aren’t comfortable with the wiki process itself… To be quite frank, continually bad-mouthing Wikipedia to the very people who use it—successfully—makes us look a bit daft. It would be much more productive to teach [people] […]

Health Search–Susannah Fox

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Bill Tancer is the general manager of global research at Hitwise and writes a column for Time.com called “Science of Search.” His recent column on “Restless Leg, Mumps and Other Maladies” addressed the effect of media attention to certain conditions & diseases. The column is a neat summary of a pattern we had noticed: The […]

My Idea of Great: Health Data Geeks Convention–Susannah Fox

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I was lucky enough to be invited to a “Data Users Conference” sponsored by the Health Information National Trends Survey/National Cancer Institute, which really should have been called Health Data Geeks Unite! If you have a moment, I highly recommend browsing through some of the presentations, particularly the following: David Stinchcomb showed how isopleth maps […]